


Abendrot

by Kingmaking



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Canon-Typical Underage, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-06
Updated: 2018-04-06
Packaged: 2019-04-19 15:26:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14240253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kingmaking/pseuds/Kingmaking
Summary: abendrot(n.) the color of the sky while the sun is settingAlys dreams of queenship./The life of Alys Harroway, told in fifty 100-word drabbles.





	1. jewel of harrenhal

In Harrenhal, Lord Harroway summons his eldest son and daughter -- favorites among his children, as luck has it -- to his study, to share the news he’s been drunk on for hours, sweeter than Arbor gold: "Prince Maegor is to set aside his wife. Barren, she is! He’s to be, of course, in need of another, one who can give him sons." His son and daughter, Harlan and Alys, exchange a look. They’re clever, tutored by maesters and the wealth of Harrenhal, aware of how the lord aspires for more, more, more. Without thinking, Alys places a hand on her stomach.

 

It matters very little to her, if King Aenys has plenty of children to further his line; in the coming days, Alys wears the expensive furs and gemstones procured by her father, polishes her curtsy and knowledge on the old Wars of Conquest, brushes out her thick, long tresses until they cascade down her back in waves of brown -- _chestnut_ , Lord Harroway writes in his letter to Dragonstone, tongue ever soaked in honey. She plasters on her best, boldest, brightest smile, shuns her sisters’s games and giggles to focus on her dreams of purple-eyed sons and daughters, dragons and queenship.

 

"Mother would be proud," Harlan says to Alys, standing next to her on the wooden platform overlooking the yard. She’s wearing her newest gown, a pretty shade of apricot -- the colours of House Harroway, black and _orange_ , would never convince a prince to take her to wife. Apricot makes her look pleasantly flushed, healthy. Not like some pale girl from the Vale. At her throat is her mother’s sapphire necklace, at her finger is her mother’s sapphire ring. There are probably even sapphires in her dowry, though Father has assured Prince Maegor that _she_ is the greatest jewel in Harrenhal.

 

The Prince of Dragonstone comes to Harrenhal on a bright day, silvery pale atop the Black Dread. The beast’s roars, like rumbling thunder, send every last servant running for the kitchens, underground and deemed safe enough from a dragon’s wrath, but Maegor Targaryen isn’t here to bathe Harrenhal in fire and blood like his sire once did. Instead, he urges the Harroways up after they kneel, the Black Dread flying high above the castle, and takes the lord’s arm like a comrade might: "I come with an offer." The Prince glances her way, then, enough for Alys’s heart to soar.

 

Alys most wishes she had a living mother at times like this, as her sisters are helping her pack her coffers for the move to Dragonstone. They are to journey by road in a week, head for Duskendale and take a ship to Dragonstone, while Prince Maegor returns to his seat atop Balerion and prepares everything, a ceremony and a feast worthy of a royal wedding. "He already has a wife," Alys’s sister Jeyne says, but only because she’s heard it from a septa. It’s the truth, but Lord Lucas has told his eldest daughter not to worry about it.

 

Had there been a Lady Harroway, she might have assured her daughter that her new husband would be gentle, come the bedding ceremony; but there is no Lady Harroway and the Prince is not, in fact, gentle. Yet, Alys enjoys herself more than she expected to, after the rowdy nonsense of the actual disrobing ritual is over with and she’s left alone, with her prince but without clothes. _That won’t fit inside me_ is not a ladylike thing to say, so Alys doesn’t say it, instead clenching her teeth until the discomfort begins morphing into what could almost be pleasure.

 

 _Whore_ is a word she’s heard before, oft spoken by her father or male relatives about some woman or another who’s displeased them, but it’s never been directed at her. Thus, when she hears the rumbling whispers that name her the Whore of Harroway, Alys doesn’t know what to make of them. "I’m not a whore," she herself whispers as Jeyne brushes her tresses out, the net of gemstones resting like a crown on her vanity, "I’m seventeen years old." Jeyne, who is fifteen but wiser than Alys gives her credit for, doesn’t say what she’s thinking: _Told you so_.

 

Maegor doesn't give her up even after his kingly brother Aenys issues a command for it, instead packing the furs and gems of her trousseau in large oaken coffers, bringing everything with them on a ship bound for Pentos -- King Aenys has called it exile, but to Alys it has the feeling of a wondrous adventure, the sun warm on her face and Maegor's arms tight around her. She is seven-and-ten, freshly wedded to and oft bedded by a dragonlord, soon to birth him princes and princesses; the world seems infinite, ripe as a peach and hers for the taking.

 

She has no trouble convincing herself that her prince and husband loves her deeply, in his rough -- but _able_ , if Alys is any judge -- way; he loves her father’s undying loyalty, the wealth of her dowry, her wit and her beauty. But more than anything else, Alys knows, he loves that she's one of seven healthy children born to her mother, undoubtedly blessed with the same fertile womb. The Prince seems to care little for her brothers and sisters, content simply to know she has them, but Alys doesn’t intend to leave her large family wanting for power and glory.

 

Alys has promised Maegor a boy, a son with the purple and silver-gold colouring of House Targaryen, that he might finally rival his brother and the brood of children he’s fathered on that arrogant Velaryon woman. She cannot keep Queen Alyssa’s face out of her mind as Maegor takes her, as intense and unrelenting with this sword as he is with Blackfyre; Alys wonders if spite motivates him as much as it motivates her. Unlikely -- he was born from the Conqueror’s seed, why concern himself with the likes of his brother’s wife? Instead of bothering him, Alys dreams of sons.

 

They settle into an enjoyable routine, in warm Pentos by the sea. It’s the same one they had in King’s Landing, yet Alys could swear the sun is brighter here, making the water glisten like sapphires. They stay at the manse of some jumped-up magister, wide-eyed at Maegor’s gold and Maegor’s dragon; the man gives them succulent food and shelter more than fit for a royal. Alys’s favorite spot in the manse is the balcony, fenced in gold and towering a hundred feet above the city below… But there’s always room for improvement. She goes to Maegor with the idea.

 

She’s putting the brightest idea she’s ever had to the test with her husband (for the seventh time). Naked as the day they came, the both of them, on the magister’s balcony with no witnesses and enough wine to last them a week. Maegor has even poured some of it on her body, as though to take a drink from her skin; it’s the closest Alys has ever felt to him, as he’s got one hand steadying them on the balustrade and the other on her bare hip, fingers digging hard enough into her flesh to make her breath itch.

 

It’s during another balcony outing that Alys first catches sight of the witch. The Prince of Pentos has asked Maegor to keep an eye on his dragon, lest it fly into a rage and frighten the people of his city, but Maegor is a prince himself and cares little for the fears of the common man; thus, as they couple -- Alys cannot think of it as _making love_ , for she’s never heard that word in her prince’s mouth --, the busy street below clears until a single woman is left. Her eyes meet Alys’s, she’d swear, from a hundred feet below.

 

After that, it appears to Alys as though the woman is everywhere: in the crowd as she and Maegor parade through Pentos, or watching from some window or another as Balerion the Black Dread soars through the sky, or even among the magister’s serving folk, men and women in bright silk, but Alys is never sure until they end up face to face at a feast. She's rather pale of skin, for a Pentoshi -- sickly, some might have thought --, with eyes that look in turn grey and purple, tresses of raven-black cascading down her shoulders. She makes Alys feel… warm.

 

"Is there any difference between a courtesan and a common whore?" Alys wishes to know; Maegor, without looking up from the latest of his mother’s oft-angry letters, answers: "Whores are cheaper." She wonders if he’s ever been to a whorehouse; she wonders if he took his other wife, the Hightower prude, the way he takes her, vigorous and demanding. She doesn’t ask, lest he take offense, instead focusing on her own correspondence. She is writing her father, back in Harrenhal, dreaming of the handsome matches they might secure for her brothers and sisters once Maegor is allowed to come back.

 

She had to ask, because a courtesan -- as opposed to a common whore -- is what they’d soon discovered the elusive beauty to be. The discarded, unfavored natural daughter of yet another Pentoshi magister, left to her own devices. Maegor takes an interest in them, the devices, inviting the woman and half a dozen others from the… _establishment_ she operates in to come and have dinner with them. He’s attracted to beauty, Alys knows -- hadn’t they counted on it, years ago? -- but there’s more to the courtesan. Tyanna, her name is. Alys is reminded of her little sister Hanna, back home.

 

Long after the others have gone, drunk on the magister’s wine, Tyanna the courtesan stays. She is a sight to behold, wrapped in heavy fabrics of black and red -- it doesn’t occur to Alys that she’s chosen to wear the colours of House Targaryen for her first meeting with a prince of the family, but Maegor’s eyes are shining, in that dangerous, hungry way. Alys sees this, follows and fears. Never before has she considered the idea that he might lust over another woman, but it's the sad nature of men. If only she could be pregnant already, have leverage…

 

… She does. The same kind Tyanna might be hiding under her dark velvet robes; Alys likes silk better, over the womanly figure Maegor has kissed and gnawed at a hundred -- thousand -- times since they were first wed. This, she’s figured out about him: he wishes to leave a mark, be it on his wife’s skin or his father’s realm. She has to keep up with him, wear a crown and bear a son. And maybe fuck a Pentoshi courtesan, while she’s at it. She’s the one who disrobes Tyanna, kissing the woman’s neck without a look spared for Maegor.

 

They’re both completely taken up with the courtesan, after that first night; Tyanna moves in with them, bringing with her nothing but the clothes on her back. They gift her with more velvet, silk and lace from Myr, delicate perfumes and expensive wines. She knows more about Westeros than Alys expected her to, speaking of wars and dooms with Maegor, tales of fire and blood that last into the night, long after Alys has fallen asleep between them. When they _do_ let her sleep; there is a dragon in her bed, as demanding as his Black Dead. Dragons need riders.

 

A king is burned in Westeros, pyre red as ruby; the day after, a second dragon appears in the sky over Pentos, calling out as it sees Balerion. Vhagar, the proud beast of Visenya Targaryen, Alys’s deadly mother-by-law. They jump out of bed and put on whatever clothes they can find as Tyanna watches, naked and smiling her smile of the good days -- as though she already knows. From her balcony, Alys watches as Prince Maegor and Queen Visenya meet below, plotting and planning. When he returns, his shoulders and his jaw are set a bit squarer. "Aenys is dead."

 

She could swear they make a son that afternoon, in the hour before Maegor takes to the sky with his mother, bound for home and throne. Alys has the Prince under her, pinned down -- or rather, he’s agreed to let her take charge of him for once. Alys goes as fast as she dares, closes her eyes and dreams of her future children atop dragons; _that_ one is the only one she herself can ever ride, she knows. Somewhere, a Queen Dowager and a courtesan sit together, speaking of alchemy, sorcery and sudden vengeance, promises written in fire and blood.

 

Tyanna doesn’t let Alys’s bed go cold, after Maegor has gone to take the crown; her paramour -- a strange word, but she adores it -- is crafty, bolder than Alys thought women like them could (were allowed?) to be. Back home, in Harrenhal or King’s Landing, she’d fear gossip and discovery. Beyond the sea and wrapped in Myrish lace, though, Alys can think of nothing safe for the feeling of Tyanna’s mouth and fingers touching her, hot then cold, then _oh_. She wakes up, one morning, with her head resting on the woman’s stomach. "I love you," Alys says; Tyanna smiles.

 

Alys catches herself wishing they could stay that way forever, in the manse with the golden balcony, but word comes from Westeros before long. It isn’t the Targaryen she expected, it isn’t the news she expected; it’s Queen Visenya, the Dark Sister, who announces that King Maegor -- _King, King!_ \-- has taken a blow to the head and has yet to stir from his sleep. _I cannot be a widow at nine-at-ten,_ Alys first concerns herself with, then: _I cannot leave Tyanna here_. "I’ve never been on a ship," the courtesan says as they leave Pentos, but it’s spoken without fear.

 

It’s Alys who’s seasick, not Tyanna. They stand together at the front of the ship, cutting through the Narrow Sea. It takes them the expected five days to reach King’s Landing; they step foot on land at night. Alys breathes in, breathes out, wonders if Tyanna misses Pentos. The courtesan -- _raven_ , the people take to calling her, with fear -- is wearing Maegor’s colours even here, as though she’s already his queen. Alys doesn’t mind. There’s a feeling in her gut, love mixed with lust, as Maegor takes Tyanna as his third wife and names them Queens, in sept and bed.

 

There’s trouble in the Reach -- _spiders in the flowers_ , Tyanna muses; there’s trouble in the West and along the Trident, there’s trouble with the nephew Maegor has yet to find and deal with, the would-be King Aegon the Second. It seems to Alys as though the only peace to be had is in her bedchambers -- she has a balcony, though it’s made of stone rather than gold. Everything's _perfect_ , safe for her lack of sons. She has soft furs and spiced wines, gowns of apricot silk and intricate lace. She has Tyanna, in black and dark red; she has the world.


	2. ashes to ashes

While Maegor is in the Reach, Alys has her father called to her chambers to plan the bright future of her family. The Hand of the King, the most powerful man in the realm after Maegor himself; he and Alys pick sons of Darry and Mallister, daughters of Darklyn and Rosby, plan to have her younger brothers squire for the King. "Riverrun has a daughter of Robert’s age," Alys muses; the Hand laughs. A Tully girl would be wasted on a third-born son, but not when that son is the King’s brother-by-law; not when Harrenhal’s star is shining this bright.

 

They’re lying together in the dark, Tyanna’s slender fingers idly tracing complicated patterns on Alys’s right thigh, right hip, right breast, when the Pentoshi says the oddest thing: "You once asked me if the future ever appeared to me in dreams. It does." Alys has to ask: "What of it?" Tyanna’s fingers dig into her skin like claws -- or, more accurately, a raven’s talon. She whispers, as if in conspiracy, "The realm won’t remember us fondly, you and I." It’s nothing Alys doesn’t know already, but Tyanna is wrong: once she’s given the King a son, everything’s bound to change.

 

It happens just as Alys thought there might be peace, after the troubles in the Reach; he murders his nephew. King Maegor, he murders Prince Aegon, the pretender, the boy with a dream of kingship. He was in the West, then on the Trident, near Harrenhal, marching on King’s Landing. Her brothers ramble like children when they bring her word of the battle, how the Black Dread slaughtered the smaller dragon, Quicksilver. It makes Tyanna smile, for she loves such tales, but Alys is taken with some worry for her husband, the kinslayer. She wishes he’d come home to her.

 

She’s in bed when her sisters come in, bringing a letter. They both turn red in the face when they spot Tyanna at Alys’s side. "My Lady Jeyne," Tyanna teases, "you look as though your own shadow just attacked you." Jeyne pales; Hanna gives Alys the letter. It’s the royal seal, red on black wax. Alys throws it aside, somewhere in the furs. "What does it say? I don’t want my mood soured by the war. Come on, you sneaky mice, I’m sure you’ve read it." They speak at the same time, but Alys hears only Jeyne: "Don’t get upset."

 

Alys does get upset. The King returns from the south with his prudish Hightower wife, _Queen_ Ceryse. They’ve reconciled, the King announces; he’s even fucking her, a third queen for his Red Keep. Alys expected to hate the woman -- wanted to, truly -- but Ceryse is aloof and regal, not speaking until spoken to, devout and dutiful. _She’s a better Queen than me_ , Alys knows, if only because nobody’s ever called _her_ a whore, aside from Maegor, but then every woman is a whore in his eyes. Ceryse names her _sister_ , her presence almost motherly. Alys decides to make this work...

 

… but Tyanna isn’t willing to make any effort. Ceryse has accepted Alys, but it’s different with the Pentoshi. Even the people of King’s Landing share the sentiment; there’s the Hightower queen, the southern flower gone somewhat thorny with the years; there’s the Harroway queen, a whore no longer, beautiful and bright as a star; then there’s the raven, the witch. They say she can speak the language of spiders and vermin; they say the King takes her on the Iron Throne, at night, until they bleed from the blades. And now, whenever Alys catches her eyes, Tyanna is glaring.

 

"The fault is with him," the Hand of the King says as he and Alys walk around what might one day become actual gardens. "Your mother and I had seven children in a decade. Harroways are perfect stock. Does he come to you every night?" Alys takes a look over her shoulder at Owen Bush of the Kingsguard, walking far enough behind so as to not hear them. "Every third night." The others are for Tyanna or Ceryse; some are for whores, some are for Alys and Tyanna both. She hears her father sigh, then say: "We must do something."

 

Alys is sitting with her older brothers in the new Tower of the Hand, quarters designed for the Hand’s family and household -- namely, for now, a dozen Harroways, wrapped in furs, showered with honors and offices. The Lord Hand has sent his advisors and scribes (each a cousin or nephew) away, locked the doors and brought the high-backed seat he so loves closer to where his children sit. Lord Harroway whispers, eyes on the Queen: "I found a man for you." She doesn’t ask him what he means, doesn’t urge him to continue. She wishes she were back in Pentos.

 

One man becomes two, five, ten; they come from in and around Harrenhal, with knight’s sword of farmer’s pitchfork, fathers of more children than any Targaryen has ever sired. Some handsome, some homely; some bought with golden dragons, some with the promise of land and lordship once Alys has birthed a boy. Lucas Harroway’s face shines with pride at the scheme; Harlan’s is composed, Martyn’s dark, Alys’s pale. She fears she might throw up. "Send them away. I command it, send them away!" The Hand of the King isn’t seen by the Queen - _a_ queen -- for a week after this.

 

(She doesn’t take any of those men to bed; they make her say she did, later, with knives and claws, fire and blood, but in her heart Alys knows the truth: the only man in her bed was the King, the dragon; the only woman in her bed was her sister in matrimony, a queen just like her. _They loved me_ , she says, _they loved me_.) When her blood doesn’t come, soon after this, Alys decides to let the Queen Mother know first. She craves the woman’s approval, maybe because she lost her own mother so early. Visenya Targaryen smiles.

 

They confine her to bed, because this is the first time a wife of the King quickens in twenty years of his ardently trying. Alys means to protest; she’s just turned two-and-twenty, healthy as ever, with so much to _do_ around the Red Keep. Her sisters and brothers must be wed, she must sit at the King’s side and let the world behold her belly and the child -- boy -- in it. Maegor wins; Alys is given cakes and company, her actual sisters and her sister-wives, her brothers and her mother-by-law, each with advice on how to make the babe strong.

 

The drink, tea, is spiced with something Tyanna brought from beloved Pentos. It has a minty scent to it, stronger than Alys likes, but her sister-wife finishes her own cup in barely a gulp, so Alys does the same. Jeyne and Hanna drink lemonade; "This is for women grown," Tyanna says with a smile, "wedded and bedded. It makes men vigorous; it turns babes into boys, strong and healthy." After her sisters are gone, Alys snuggles close to Tyanna and wonders about the recipe. "Leaves," Tyanna whispers in her ears, "with a spoon of honey and a drop of pennyroyal."

 

For a second, after her son has been born and beheld for what he was -- _monstrous_ , Jeyne later says, _but how could it be your fault?_ , Alys fears the King might hit her. He wasn’t there for the screaming and the begging, wasn’t there to watch as Hanna pinned her down so that she wouldn’t scratch at her stomach, watch as Jeyne wept and retched from the scent of blood and death, the shock of it, wasn’t there as night succeeded the day. But he’s there now, face red at the foot of her bed, standing on a bloody floor.

 

He doesn’t hit her, he doesn’t speak to her; he simply takes the Grand Maester by the collar, lifting him from the ground, screaming: " _This cannot be my son!_ " He has him beaten into a pulp by the Kingsguard, takes his head with Blackfyre and has the same done to the women that attended Alys, everyone safe queens and the sisters of queens. They climb into bed with her, her sisters, Hanna covering Alys’s ears as the midwives beg and Jeyne trembling like a leaf. At the window, dressed in mourning black, Ceryse Hightower is praying. Alys screams for Tyanna.

 

"Have you sent for Tyanna? It’s her I want to be with, not _you_." The septa is one of Lord Harroway’s people, a Riverlander like them, though she could be the blind dog of some Ironborn peasant for what little Alys cares. She doesn’t need the Seven or the empty prayers of an old woman, not as they’re about to lay her almost-son on a pyre; she wishes only for the warmth of her sister-wife at her side, her counsel and her wit. Tyanna might fix it; Tyanna might bring her tea and hold her close, like she always has.

 

Tyanna doesn’t come and the septa doesn’t go. It’s a new one; Alys knows what’s happened to the teary-eyed one who assisted her, what’s happened to the midwives and the Grand Maester, a man of rank and standing within the realm. She knows, but she and her sisters don’t talk once about it. _It’s not our fault the baby didn’t live_ , the Harroway sisters think, but Alys’s child has done worse than rot away in her womb. _A monster_ , people soon begin whispering, _no way could it be the blood of House Targaryen_. Somewhere, a spider is spinning a web.

 

"Your sisters must go home," Lord Harroway says when he comes to visit, the second night after her dead boy is born. It makes Alys unhappy; without her family, she might be stuck with prudish Ceryse and her septas. Tyanna is busy with her work as Master (Queen?) of Whisperers. The King hasn’t returned since last time, her chambers are so empty… She doesn’t realize how nervous her father is, instead asking that at least Hanna be left to her, seven-and-ten as Alys had been when she wed. And young Maric, who so wishes to be useful. Father gives in.

 

They come at night, breaking down her door as they shout and demand… Surrender? It takes Alys a second or two to recognize them, another to _understand_ , as she watches a knight in white shove aside the septa who slept at her bedside. They’ve barged through her quarters and into her bedroom; Alys gathers her furs around her, doesn’t let go as they drag her out of bed by the collar of her nightgown, like a criminal. The floor is cold under her feet, like the blades of the Kingsguard; the sight of them makes her scream. _They’re arresting me_.

 

They make the same mistake, she and the Kingsguard. They forget about her sisters, her poor Jeyne and Hanna; they forget about her brother Maric, the King’s own squire, with a thin sword that even Alys could swing. They cut him down first, like swatting a fly. Alys screams -- her poor darling, such a sweet babe he’d been, but her brother is dead before his body can hit the ground. Ser Owen Bush has done it; maybe he didn’t mean to, for he hesitates, loosens his grip on Alys’s arm. It’s enough for her to slip away, furs left behind.

 

 _I must speak with the King_ , Alys knows, _I need only speak with the King_. She could make it right, beg and _beg_ for a second chance, anything. But: "They killed Maric!" It’s Jeyne, crying and begging, her arms wrapped around Alys. _They_ are banging at the door Hanna is keeping shut with her little body: "Alys Harroway, by order of the King, you must come with us!" It makes Jeyne scream and plead with her, fingers trembling as they cling to Alys’s own, to her clothes and her neck: "Please!" The door and Hanna are both sent crashing down.

 

She had always pictured that she’d be the strong one, should disaster ever strike her family -- a sudden death, a nasty rumor, anything. When it does, though, she doesn’t move. She stays where Jeyne left her, wide-eyed as her sisters… Younger by years, shorter by inches, braver by lifetimes. "Mercy!" It’s the first word she can think of, as though she were the wife of _Maegor the Merciful_. Owen Bush has dealt with both her sisters in one stroke, Jeyne’s throat and Hanna’s gut. They grab her before she can hold them, but her nightgown is soaked with blood anyway.

 

Alys soon learns the Red Keep was made redder today, flooded with Harroway blood. Her other brothers are dead, she’s told; her father is dead, his men are dead, her uncles and her cousins, young and old, hunted and arrested around King’s Landing, impaled on the pikes of the moat around the castle for a crime the King is convinced she’s committed. _This is a dream_. It’s hard to convince herself, with the blood of her sisters running down her fingers, the screams fresh in her ears. "Do it," she whispers, "cut me down." But they only push her forward.

 

There is no taming Maegor Targaryen’s wrath, the way there is no taming Balerion the Black Dread. Alys knows this; by the time they reach the dungeons, though, she’s resorted to begging, clinging to Ser Owen’s arm as they advance. When she refuses to move her feet, they drag her; when she promises them riches, if they help her -- "I need only speak to the King!" --, she’s told Harrenhal is soon to go up in flames once more. A murdered father, a burned castle and a dead son… It’s a strange feeling (peaceful?), to realize one’s life is fully over.

 

It makes sense, that Tyanna should be there when Alys opens her eyes. She’s been sleeping for a very long time -- a day, a week? -- and yet she’d sleep some more if she could. Her entire body is heavy from something Tyanna’s made her drink, worse than honey and pennyroyal. _He_ ’s there; Alys can hear the name, the one from before: _Whore_. The Whore of Harroway; she’s a treacherous harlot, now, damned for the sin of adultery. She’s trapped, the torture more than her labored body can bear, but once they stop toying with her, after a fortnight, there’s freedom.

 

She’s holding Hanna and Maric as Lady Harroway is put to rest; she’s racing Harlan on horseback; she’s helping Jeyne with sewing, Robert with letters; she’s teasing Martyn about the pretty daughter of a household knight, far away from the Red Keep’s dungeons; she’s dancing with the handsome son of Lord Tully; she’s on a boat out to sea, wrapped in furs and folly; she’s on a balcony made of gold, on top of the world; she’s kissing a witch with witty eyes that have yet to turn wicked; she’s holding a purple-eyed boy with a crown on his head.


End file.
